Feature Creep
by elev
Summary: The rabbit hole went far, far deeper than Elizabeth Ruben had ever expected, but she wasn't about to back out now. What would she do? Go back to her boring ol' job as a programmer? Puh-leeze. Being Robin was so much more fun...and maybe, someday, it would let her pay back her debt to the world. Sequel to Protocols. Donnelly is back! Written by a geek for tech realism. AU.
1. Chapter 1

_Note:_

_Oooooo, a sequel already! Please read Protocols ( /s/9423377/1/Protocols ) first._

**September 2012**

My hands shook. They were clasped tight in my lap, but they shook anyway. Couldn't blame them, really, not after what I'd been through today. My entire body trembled from time to time. Maybe it was some after-effect of the electrical shocks, or maybe my body was like a car engine, sputtering on the last fumes of adrenaline with no gas station in sight. Or maybe it was nerves.

I'd done a lot of dubious things in my life, especially after meeting John, but lying to a federal agent was a definite first.

Special Agent Donnelly sat next to me in front of his desk. He had one leg crossed over the other and his shiny brown Oxfords gleamed beneath the glare of the florescent light fixtures overhead. He was hunched over his clipboard, writing down in his impeccable handwriting every word I said, and then some. His pen scratched and scraped in the quiet of the FBI office. His tired eyes were fixed on the paper. There were deep, dark circles beneath those eyes, and his skin drooped a little there, making him look like a sleepy old basset hound. Yet at the same time, every so often he would glance at me, and I would see the fiery alertness behind those eyes, taking in every detail, all the time.

John had told me about Donnelly. He was a good man, John had said. A good agent. But that didn't change the fact that he was hell-bent on putting John and anyone who worked with him behind bars. And here I was, John's sidekick, telling Donnelly a story, every word a lie...starting with my name.

"We're almost done, Miss Weston," Donnelly said. I squirmed in battered seat. A sharp tear in the leather cushion poked at the back of my legs and I winced, wishing for the dozenth time that the thin gown I had been given was more substantial. I mean, it was better than being naked—but still. The blue fabric was thin and the sleeves were short. Maybe it was just as well. The angry red welts on my arms and legs—burns from the electrodes—stung enough without the added aggravation of cheap fabric rubbing against them.

The ones elsewhere on my body...well, I just had to grit my teeth and put up with the itching.

Agent Donnelly glanced at me, then looked back down at his notes. He scratched the back of his head as he read. "You're a great help, Merida; a real great help. We've been trying to nab these guys for _years_."

I nodded, and then, because Agent Donnelly seemed like the guy who would bend over backward for an innocent young woman in distress, I faked a sniffle or two and threw a little waver into my voice. "So are they gonna go to jail?"

"Oh, most definitely," he said. "Don't you worry. We've got all the evidence we need to keep these people from hurting anyone else." He held the pen against the clipboard with one hand, reached for the paper cup that had been set precariously close to the cell phone on the desk. He took a long sip, then said, "You sure I can't get you some coffee? You look like you could use it."

"I'm fine," I said, glancing over my shoulder and looking at the corridor leading to the elevators. I wanted _out_ of this office. I wanted to go find the nearest of John's safehouses and lick my wounds and curl up into a little ball on the couch and not come out to see the world for a good week or so. But I couldn't leave just yet without attracting suspicion.

"So," Donnelly said. His eyes were on the paper. He waved the pen around like a baton to direct his thoughts. "Let's just go over this real quick...you arrived at the black-hat convention on Friday?"

"Y-yeah," I said. My leg didn't want to stop wiggling.

"Okay. Then, you said, last night you—"

He was interrupted by the arrival of a young man with curly blond hair and the kind of thick-rimmed glasses that looked like they'd been imported direct from the 50s.

"Agent Donnely, sir?" he said. "Alex salvaged that VHS footage. You won't believe how clear it is."

Donnelly's face lit up like he was a little boy getting a new remote-control airplane for Christmas. He said, "I'm sorry, Merida, but I really have to handle this. Wait here a few minutes, will you? I'll be back as soon as I can." I nodded, and Donnelly lurched out of his seat to follow the young man, leaving his clipboard, his coffee, and his cell phone behind. Not to mention me. He disappeared into an open doorway about ten feet away.

I sighed and rubbed my eyes, wondering how long until I could safely leave. Probably, not until Agent Donnelly was through with his paperwork. He seemed to _love_ paperwork. There was probably a paper he needed to sign about talking to a witness...and then a paper to sign about signing a paper about talking to a witness...

I stared down at my hands, still clasped tight in my lap. The shakes seemed to be receding, and for that, I was thankful. Now, fatigue was setting in. If it hadn't been for the voices babbling through the doorway, I might've fallen asleep right then and there. Donnelly's voice carried above the rest, and he sounded pretty damn excited.

"That's the best view we have of the area," he said.

Someone else said, "He'll be on screen in just a minute, I think—we rewound the tape a bit too far..."

On the desk in front of me, Donnelly's cell phone chimed. I ignored it, until it chimed a second time. Then a third. And then, it began to play an ominous little tune. It took me a few seconds to recognize it: the song was the boss theme for an old cartridge video game from the 90s.

I glanced up and smiled, amused—Donnelly did _not_ seem to be the type to listen to old video game tunes—but the smile slid right off my face when I noticed the word on the screen: _ruben pick up_.

_Oh. Shit,_ I thought. _Is it John? _I glanced around, then snagged the cell phone off the desk. It didn't even give me a chance to touch the screen. The words disappeared and were replaced with another message.

_take phone and run,_ it said. There was a short pause, during which my heart accelerated like a warp drive and my brain tried to catch up, and then I noticed the sender: _Sybil Thornhill_.

As soon as I saw that, I knew I had to act fast. Clutching Donnelly's cell phone (what was a little theft on top of lying to a federal agent?), I stood, pulled the gown tighter around my body, and crept towards the hallway, winding my way between the desks. My heart thudded and fear dripped down my spine, like ice water. There were two other agents towards the other side of the room, but neither of them looked up at me—thank goodness. I would've fainted.

The voices from the office became even louder.

"That's no better than the footage we already have," Donnelly said. There was a note of disappointment in his voice. "I can hardly see him."

"But wait," said the other voice. "There's someone else with him. Look."

A pause. I was almost at the mouth of the hallway. The elevators were just around the corner at the end of the hallway—thirty feet away.

Donnelly's voice. "Who is that? No no, go back...that's—is that—_shit_—"

"Isn't that the girl you were just—?"

The phone buzzed in my hand.

I made the mistake of looking back over my shoulder. Donnelly stood in the doorway across the office, his mouth agape. Those droopy eyes were droopy no longer—they were wide, and they were mad.

"Stop!" Agent Donnelly shouted. The other two agents looked up. Donnelly vaulted a desk in front of him like it was nothing more than a speedbump and barreled towards me. "Someone stop her! _Stop_!"

I didn't need any more motivation—I ran.


	2. Chapter 2

**Note: I have no idea where this story is going. Just sayin'. Well, OK, I have a rough idea, but...hehehe...**

**#####**

**April 2012**

"Ellie," said John, "you need to get out of there. Duane is on the move."

His soft voice crackled through the tiny Bluetooth headset that was nestled inside my right ear. My fingers stumbled on the grimy black keyboard in front of me.

"Every time you distract me, it takes longer," I complained. The convoluted shell scripts took long enough to type without John nagging me every thirty seconds. "I've almost got his emails copied."

My external hard drive chattered on the desk as it copied data from a massive desktop computer at thirty megabytes per second. Most days, I considered that to be fast enough; right now it felt like I was copying files from a glacier. The drive's indicator light flashed rapidly, on-off-on-off, as I scanned the partition for any other files of interest—word documents, memos, todo list, pictures, scanned images, zip files, spreadsheets—anything that could help us figure out just why this Jonathan Duane fellow had shown up on John's vigilante-o-matic radar, or whatever it was that John had in his Batcave that let him know when someone was about to get themselves in a boatload of trouble.

"Ellie, he's heading back. Get out now."

"Almost done," I said, biting my lip. My heart pounded and my fingers shook, but I wasn't ready to yank the drive, not when I was so close! The shell scripts recursed into directory after directory, dredging up information and feeding it to my hard drive's two-terabyte maw.

"Ninety-three percent," I told John. I kept my voice low—sure, no one else was in the house besides a particularly fat and ill-tempered cat, but I didn't want to be overheard by one of Duane's neighbors. The last thing I needed was for somebody to come a-knockin', or worse, to call the cops. John's detective friends could only do so much to run interference for us.

The speaker crackled in my ear. John's voice now had a tone that I didn't often hear from him: not quite fear, but getting there. "Ellie, we just found out: he's not a vet, he's a money launderer, and he's headed right for you. Go, _now_—damnit. Fellows, not now, I'm a little busy—"

There came a sudden crashing noise in my ear, followed by sounds of pain and what sounded suspiciously like a fistfight.

"John?" I asked. He didn't respond, but the sounds of the fight continued.

_Come on, come on, come on,_ I thought, watching the script run with impatience. As far as desktop computers went, this Duane guy had a decent model, but there were thousands of interesting files on his hard drive, and it took longer to copy a great many small files than several large ones. I tapped my foot impatiently on the carpet. Glanced up at the window for the dozenth time, even though I knew the shades were drawn.

A long, drawn-out howl screeched through the earpiece, overloading the tiny speaker. I winced, and for an instant, worried it was John—but the voice was too high to be his. The fight was still going on. Glass broke. Things crashed. John panted and grunted in my ear as the files copied, one after another after another, until—

"It's done!" I said. I had the drive synced and unmounted in seconds. I dropped it into my tote bag, pulled the infiltration flash drive too—it was mounted read-only, so I could just yank it—and powered off the computer. I shouldered the bag and stood.

The front door lock clicked. The knob turned.

_Aww, shit, _I thought. Dread trickled down my spine, like ice water. I backed away, but I was in sight of the door, almost in the center of the room, and I couldn't run fast enough. My hand dipped towards my bag—

Jonathan Duane was short and bald and far too muscular. He had a goatee, the kind that screamed "thug," and a single tattoo of a rose on his wrist. He was wearing a polo shirt, a pair of gray shorts, and flip-flops. His eyes widened when he saw me, standing there like an idiot in the middle of his living room, and he froze. But by then, my hand had closed around my pistol and I brought it up, arms straight, aimed straight for the center of his mass like John had taught me. Clicked the safety off with my thumb mid-motion.

For a long, long, _long_ moment, neither of us spoke.

After awhile, Duane said, "So, Tyler sent a schoolgirl in a skirt to get his revenge?" He took a step towards me, then another. I backed towards the kitchen, keeping the dealer in my sight the entire time.

"Sorry," I said. "Just passing through. I'll be going now."

My hands shook around the gun—not enough to throw off my aim, but enough for me to notice. I wondered—would this guy be The One? My first victim? I had never had to fire my gun before—not even out of self defense. Usually, the mere sight of it was enough of a deterrent. But not for this guy.

"Not here to kill me? You looking to be a client? I can give you more bang for your buck with a little._..persuasion."_

"No, thanks," I said. Beneath my shoes, the flooring went from carpet to linoleum. The back door was less than ten feet away. If I could just make it across the yard and through the wooden gate...

I took a step backwards. Then another. And then—

A yowl—

That fucking _cat—_

The fluffy monstrosity had crept up behind me and tangled itself in my legs. I stumbled and fell backwards and landed flat on my back. Somehow, I managed to keep a grip on my gun, but before I could regain my wits, Duane was on top of me. He hadn't showered in awhile, I noticed in a sort of detached way as I was pinned beneath the mass of his body, or maybe he had just come from the gym. Either way, he stank, and either way, I wanted him _off_ me. He grabbed my right wrist and held it to the ground, forcing the gun away from him, but with his attention fixated on the gun, there was nothing to stop me from introducing my knee to his family jewels.

Twice.

_Hard._

Duane wheezed and his grip loosened. That gave me just enough freedom of movement to jab him in the eyes with my free hand. Swearing, he released my wrist. I thanked him by elbowing him in the face. His head snapped back and he clutched his face. I scooted out from under him. By some miracle, the gun was still in my hand, and I kept it pointed at Duane as I stood, breathing hard.

"Stay down," I hissed. He obeyed, clutching his face and crotch.

My bag had fallen from my shoulder mid-fight. I collected it, and then, with all the calmness I could muster, I backed my way to the front door, keeping the gun pointed at the man squirming on his own living room floor. I yanked the door open and stepped out into the afternoon, keeping my gun concealed between the bag and my body as I made my way down the front walk. There was no one around.

"I'm out, John," I panted.

"Are you hurt—?"

I ignored the sharp ache in my wrist and backside. "No," I said. "But Duane is."

"Badly?"

"You care?"

"Consider it morbid curiosity."

"He'll live." I kept the gun concealed between the tote bag and my body as I reached the sidewalk and made my way to the little brown car John had loaned me. Didn't relax until I had checked the back seat, then slid behind the wheel and locked the doors.

"Okay," I sighed. Took a deep, steadying breath. "Okay. I'm heading back to the rendezvous. What was all that noise I heard? Are you all right?"

"You should see the other guys."

The corners of my mouth rose as I put the car in drive and pulled out into the street. "Seems to be a common theme today."

"I'll tell you all about it when you get to the diner," John said.

"You're buying me tea. _Lots_ of honey."

"Yes. Oh, and Ellie?"

"Yeah, John?"

"Don't do that again." The humor had disappeared from his voice. "You're getting better at defending yourself, but you're not _that_ good. It's better to run than to fight. When I say get out, you need to get out. Got it?"

"Yes, Mama," I said. But I knew he was right.

There was a little room in the back of Sinclair's diner towards the rear of the kitchen. The room was hot and moist and stuffed with computer equipment for the sales terminals up front, and it offered John and me a good rendezvous location. Sinclair had gotten herself into a bind a few months back. John and I had done our thing and helped her out, and now she felt that it was the least she could do to allow her saviors a private place to meet. As an added bonus, Sinclair's had the best sweet-potato french fries I had _ever_ tasted—on the house. At least, Sinclair tried to make it on the house. John always left a hundred-dollar bill behind whenever we borrowed the back room, even though he never ate anything. Well, _sometimes_ he snuck one or two of the fries from my plate—but other than that, he seemed to run on coffee alone.

My little netbook—a recent, unexpected gift—sat amidst piles of old bills and invoices on the desk. The compact computer was jacked right in to Sinclair's router, which in turn was connected to a business-class DSL modem. My external hard drive was lying on its side nearby, connected to the netbook by a thin USB cable. A half-full mug of tea warmed my hands, which still trembled from time to time as the adrenaline faded from my body. I took a deep swig of tea, set the mug down on a spot of desk that had been cleared of papers, and pointed to the screen.

"Here's another email from Tyler Morris, dated two days ago..._dayumn_, he's pissed off."

"We may have just found our perpetrator," John said, rubbing his chin. There was a cut on his cheek and a shiner throbbing above his left eye. He didn't seem to notice, or to care. His hair, usually combed so precise, was tousled—a sure sign he'd been in a tough fight.

"Can Duane and Morris both be perpetrators?" I asked. I still wasn't sure about the whole perpetrator/victim thing, or why John's BatRadar didn't tell him which one a person was about to become—leaving it up to us to figure it out. "Because, Duane doesn't act like much of a victim."

"Funny how people get mad when you break into their house," John said.

"Yeah, well, like you said—it's for their own good."

"I don't remember saying that." John's hand snaked towards the basket of french fries that was balanced a little too close to the netbook; I slapped his hand away.

"You implied it."

"Well, it _is_ for their own good, but they get even madder if you try to explain it when they catch you."

His hand crept towards the basket again; I rolled my eyes and allowed him to make off with a single fry.

"I think I'll be paying Tyler a visit later today," John said. "Maybe Duane, too. If we're lucky, the case will be closed tonight."

"Don't beat Duane up too much," I said. "I took care of it for you already."

"Ellie, I'm proud of you. You've graduated from B&E to assault."

"He came at me first. Think he's gonna tell anybody he got beat up right and proper in his own home by a girl in a skirt?"

"Probably not. Nobody would believe him."

I smiled; took another sip of tea. The tremble in my hands was receding. I reached for the netbook keyboard, brushed a few stray crumbs aside, and pulled up a file manager to see if there was anything else interesting among the files I'd copied from Duane's desktop.

"Finally warming up to Sybil's latest present?" John asked, tilting his head towards the netbook.

I glared at John, which only made the little smirk on his face widen. "I like my old laptops better," I grumbled.

"Nothing wrong with getting a little new hardware every once in awhile," John said. "Does it work well?"

"Well...yah," I admitted. And that was the problem. I'd spent _days_ looking for even the tiniest fault in the little netbook, but it performed as advertised and beyond—the keyboard was comfortable, the Linux operating system was stable, the solid-state drive put the tiny computer's short boot time into a class of its own, and try as I might, I hadn't managed to get the darn thing to overheat even with all CPU throttling disabled—impressive, considering the tiny laptop had a quad-core CPU and a discrete graphics chip. The only thing that _really_ bugged me about it was the built-in webcam, and that little problem was easily solved with a strip of electrical tape. "But—she didn't have to be so snarky about it."

"What's snarky about saying you could use a faster computer?"

"It's just—she—she typed it sarcastically. The greeting card that came with it. It was sarcastic."

John raised his eyebrows and looked aside.

"Oh, shut up," I said, poking him in the chest. "I swear, when I finally meet this Sybil lady..."

John helpfully finished the sentence for me: "...you'll thank her for the expensive netbook, and the books, and the tea, and the chocolate?"

"Yeah. Sure. So, when do I get to talk to her so I can, uh, thank her?"

"I dunno," John said. "Sybil is a very private...person."

"Sybil, Lucius Finch, Shaw—all you superheros are private people," I muttered.

"They're called 'secret identities' for a reason," John agreed.

We stayed there in that over-heated, over-cramped room for another half-hour, nibbling on sweet potato french fries and picking apart Duane's emails just to be sure there was nothing that we had missed. John left first, as usual. I waited fifteen minutes, packed up my computer equipment, slipped out the back door, and walked the three blocks to the garage where I had parked my car. I kept close watch on my surroundings as I rode the lift to the third floor, loitered a bit, then took the stairs back down to the second floor and walked to my car, but no one paid me undue attention.

It was paranoia, I reflected as I started the engine and eased the car to the spiral downward ramp, but John had told me stories about some of the men and women he had met during the course of his career as professional vigilante, and with people like that out there, I figured it paid to be extra careful. So I put up with it.

I kept a careful eye on the cars around me as I drove. No one seemed to be following me. About a half-block from my apartment, I parked the car in an underground garage, made sure I'd gotten all my belongings out, and walked the rest of the way.

The car would be gone by that evening.

I entered the apartment building through a side door, took the lift up to the seventh floor, and walked down the hallway to a door marked _7C. _This apartment, if anyone had cared to check, was rented out to a Cassandra Bradbury, who did not exist. Sure, I had her driver's license and passport, and I occasionally updated her FriendZone profile, but Cassandra was nothing more than a cover identity, one I had created myself with a little help from John and a lot more help from his mysterious rich guy, Harold Finch. Cassandra was my newest identity, the latest of three—still a bit sparse, especially in the social networking department, but given time, it would grow.

Right now, though, I didn't want to be Cassandra, who liked blue cheese and video games and bebop jazz and colorful T-shirts with geeky, nerdy things emblazoned on the front. I just wanted to be plain ol' Elizabeth Ruben, who preferred cookies over salad, and could barely hold a GameStation controller the right way (really, a good computer was _far_ superior for gaming), and wore happy blouses and swirly skirts and dark tights and little-girl shoes, none of which had any logos or printing on them because she didn't want to be a bipedal billboard.

I unlocked the door and stepped inside the modest apartment. Locked the door behind me. Then, before I did anything else, I pulled out my gun and swept through the apartment, room by room—more paranoia, but some of John's stories were really quite good at scaring the bejesus out of me, so I did it anyway, checking each room until I ended up back in the living room. Once satisfied that the boogieman wasn't awaiting me, I plopped down onto the couch. Unloaded the gun. Set it and the tote bag on the glass coffee table. Unbuckled my flat Mary Janes, one at a time, and tossed them towards the obsidian rectangle that was the television. Stretched. Padded into the kitchen to set the tea kettle boiling and to snag a cookie from the tin atop the refrigerator. Ducked into the bedroom, stripped off my clothes, and draped myself in a silky forest-green nightgown, like liquid comfort. A little later, I fixed myself a cup of black tea with a generous dollop of honey.

It was amazing how easy it was for me to put on my mask and become a vigilante sidekick, and then later, to take off the mask and go back to being an innocent young woman. Like flipping a switch. Just a few hours ago, I'd been fighting off some sod who thought a girl in a skirt was easy picking, and now here I was, settling down on the couch with a steaming cup of tea and a sci-fi book from the wall-to-wall bookcases out in the living room. The transition was natural, mindless...

Most days.

(Other days, it took much more than a mere cup of tea and a book to calm me. The Wilson case still haunted me. That poor man...)

I read until 11PM, soaking up the words from the book like a good, hot bath, and then retired to the bedroom to sleep. I took the gun with me. Slipped it under my pillow.

Just in case.

As John liked to say, only the paranoid survived.

#####

Miles away, in a second-story chamber within a derelict library, John Reese sat in a swivel chair. _Sprawled,_ actually; casually, without a care; a shadow against dark leather. The only illumination in the room came from the six LCD monitors arranged on the round wooden desk before him. It lit his face and the sliver of white shirt visible beneath his black suit jacket, making it appear as though his head were floating in the night.

Adjacent to him, poised like a lord in his castle, sat Harold Finch, dressed to the nines and then some in a burgundy three-piece suit that had cost more than all of the computer equipment in the room. His fingers tapped away at the keyboard, like a rabid pianist, but he exuded the same atmosphere of tranquility as the abandoned library building. The various windows and terminals open on the monitors were reflected in his glasses; a tiny, ghostly constellation hovering inches before his eyes.

A teacup, half-full, sat in its saucer on the desk. Next to the saucer, two cell phones charged.

For awhile, neither of the men spoke. It was Reese who broke the silence.

"Today was fun," he said. His voice matched his pose—lazy, laid-back, dark, ominous—and just a touch seductive.

"Mr. Reese," said Finch, not taking his eyes from the lines of C and assembly code he was optimizing, "you sent six thugs to the hospital today, not to mention Mr. Morris, and set two ambulances _and_ a fire truck on fire. You also managed to infuriate Detective Carter—yet again—and very nearly shot Detective Fusco in the posterior. And let's not discuss the state of Miss Shaw's boots. Or her propensity towards high-caliber weaponry."

"Like I said: today was fun. Don't forget about Duane. Elizabeth got him pretty good. He was still limping when I got to him."`

Finch's mouth turned downward and his eyebrow rose. "About that. I believe you told Miss Ruben to vacate the premises—four times."

Reese shrugged. "Bad connection, probably. Maybe Duane's house is a dead zone."

"Mr. Reese, while our Miss Ruben has proven herself to be a valuable asset on occasion...working with someone who is unable or unwilling to follow orders will inevitably imperil our mission."

"You let Shaw hang around," Reese pointed out.

"Miss Shaw is experienced. Miss Ruben is not."

"Then we should give her experience," Reese said.

Finch looked away from the monitors just long enough to give Reese a glare of disapproval.

"Our work is perilous, Mr. Reese. Miss Ruben needs to understand that what we do is not some sort of—trivial comic book adventure. Her attitude towards our endeavor occasionally borders on flippant and rollicking." He glanced at Reese again. "I wonder where _that_ came from?"

"Shaw," Reese said, without hesitation.

"I was thinking someone with a greater propensity towards tying petty criminals to lampposts to await their imminent arrest."

"Hmm," Reese said, rubbing his chin. "Bear."

The incredulous look on Finch's face was a sight to be behold. _"Bear,"_ he repeated. "Mr. Reese, you're childishly avoiding the subject. Bear is a _dog_."

"He's smart."

"He doesn't have _thumbs_. He cannot tie a knot."

"Well, if the guy is holding his leash, Bear can drag him to a post and run around the post a few times. Works pretty well. Right, Harold?"

The pearly illumination from the monitors was just sufficient for Reese to see Finch blush.

"Perhaps we should discuss this matter tomorrow," he said, salvaging his dignity by returning his attention to the monitors.

"Suit yourself," Reese said, and for awhile longer, there was silence. Until...

"Elizabeth warmed up to Sybil's latest gift," Reese said. This time, Finch's fingers faltered.

"Gift?" he asked, uncertain. "Which gift? The software disassembly book?"

"No," Reese said. "The top-of-the-line IFT UltraPad netbook and mTech two-terabyte external hard drive."

Finch's brow knitted itself together. "It sent her a _computer?_"

"Yeah," Reese drawled. "And a nice hard drive. I tell you, Finch, I'm feeling a little hurt here. Sybil never buys _me_ computers. Neither do you."

Frowning, Finch turned to the monitors and said aloud, "Did you send Miss Ruben a netbook and hard drive?"

For some seconds, nothing happened. But then an LED lit up next to the monitor: the "record" light on the tiny webcam clipped to the monitor frame. Finch's cell phone buzzed a second later.

_1,_ said the screen.

"Why?" Finch asked, in a voice that managed to be both curious and irritated at the same time.

_62 65 63 61 75 73 65_, said the screen. Reese had no idea what that meant. Finch must have, because mouthed out a few syllables and said, lovingly, "Oh, now _you're_ being childish too. And it would take you less data to transmit that in the clear."

_that in the clear_, said the screen.

Reese smirked. Finch, for a long time, did not speak.

"It's right," he said to Reese. "Technically, that _is_ fewer characters_._"

"Your Machine has a sense of humor, Finch."

"Yes. And I don't know if that is awe-inspiring or terrifying. Perhaps both." He cleared his screen and said to the camera, "The gifts to Elizabeth Ruben need to stop."

_y ?_

"Because—because each shipment is a trail that could potentially lead back to you. You are careful, I'm sure, but your actions carry with them an inherent risk. So do these text messages, for that matter. You know how I feel about long conversations."

_1._

_pkg det prob: 5.62112351x10^-37_

_phn det prob: 8.12342623521x10^-38_

Finch sighed. "Well...I suppose you know better than I do."

_1_.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Finch said, "Why do you use the alias Sybil Thornhill?"

_y! ?_, said the screen. It took Finch a little longer to decipher that one.

"Why not. Haha." Finch looked amused.

"Maybe it's having an identity crisis," Reese suggested.

_0,_ said the screen.

"You're tired of being Ernie?" Reese asked.

_0__,_ said the screen.

"You're still Ernie?"

_1._

"And you're Sybil, too?"

_1._

"Whadaya know, Harold," Reese said. "It's Schrodinger's cat."

Finch cleared his throat again and said, "Do you...wish us to call you by a particular one of these names?"

_*_, said the screen.

"What does that mean?" Reese asked.

"I believe it means that it does not prefer any particular name," Finch said.

_1_.

"Well," said Finch, staring straight at the camera, "whichever identity you wish to go by—please, be careful. There are factions out there that wish to find you. To control you. To use you to harm others. Miss Ruben does not know you exist as you are. It would be better for her if it stayed that way. Safer for her and for you."

There was a long pause.

_1,_ the screen said, and Reese noticed that the font was half the size it had been before, as if the Machine didn't really want to admit it...

#####


	3. Chapter 3

_Note: Thanks to SWWoman for beta-ing this._

_Hmm, I wonder who Finch could possibly be talking about..._

#####

**April 2012**

"Class dismissed," said Dr. Goodwin. "Don't forget to grab your quiz before you go."

I closed my laptop and slid it into my rolling pack along with my notes and my pens. I yawned and rubbed my eyes. Weary, I stood and joined the throng of students at the table at the front of the classroom. Papers were spread out over its surface. No doubt they had been a neat stack, ordered alphabetically by last name, before the first students had arrived to dig for their graded quiz; now the papers were scattered across the table like autumn leaves.

Dr. Goodwin stood behind the table. Her brown hair was tied up tight in its bun, but the long day had taken its toll and dozens of strands had escaped. She looked particularly fierce today, dressed all in angles and sharp lines; blood red blouse and white blazer and fine gray pants. When I neared the table, she caught my eye and said, not unkindly, "Elizabeth? Can you stay a few minutes, please?"

"Uh, sure," I said. I waited until the crowd around the table had cleared some—how I hated my classmates breathing down my neck as I searched for my messy scrawl among the papers!-and started digging around for my quiz.

I didn't find it.

I checked twice, and then peeked under the table to make sure it hadn't fallen to the floor, but my quiz was nowhere to be found.

Several of the students had surround Dr. Goodwin, no doubt demanding an explanation for their low scores. I stood to the side and watched her explain, in no uncertain terms, precisely which each of the answers they claimed were correct were actually wrong. Soon, I was the only other person in the room.

"You wanted to see me, Doctor?" I asked. I leaned against the edge of the table.

"Yes," she said. "Just a second..." With long strides, she stepped behind the computer desk and hunched over her open suitcase, rifling through papers and holding them up near her face to read.

"Ah," she said. She held the paper to her chest with those long fingers of hers. "Elizabeth, I'm concerned about your performance as of late."

"Uh oh," I said, eying the paper. "What'd I get?"

She handed me the paper. I saw red, literally—red marks everywhere.

"Oh," I said, stunned, but not surprised. I had been so busy working the last few cases with John, I hadn't had time to study for the quiz at all. Still, I'd been hoping to squeeze by with a _slightly_ higher score...

"Elizabeth, for the past five semesters, you've been the top student in all of my classes. But this spring..."

"I'm sorry, Doctor," I said. "I've just...had a rough few months."

"You know I don't take attendance for this course, but I can't help noting that you've missed seven class sessions. I'm worried that, with your current grade—especially considering this last quiz—if you don't do well on the final, you won't be able to pass the course, and then you wouldn't be able to graduate this May." She peered at me, concern etched in her face. "I don't want to pry—but is there anything I can do to help?"

I sighed. "No, Doctor, I've just been really, _really _busy lately. Work and the dissertation and all that. Mostly work." And it wasn't a lie. I mean, John paid me and everything (not that I did it for the money), so it was a job. Technically.

"Perhaps you could shift or reduce your hours at Landis or the library? You're working two part-time jobs..."

I didn't have the heart to tell her that I had already quit my library job sometime mid-January. Freeing up two days out of the week had made it a lot easier to help John with the cases.

"I could ask," I said.

"Let me know if there's anything I can do," Dr. Goodwin said.

"I will, doctor. Thanks." I slid the paper into my bag, said goodbye, and left the classroom. My rolling bag grumbled along the linoleum floor as I walked down the long hallway to the bank of lifts at the center of the building. I was on the fourth floor. I ignored the lifts and made my way down the stairs instead, because if there was one thing that I hated about this building, it was the ancient traction lifts that liked to malfunction every other day. (You would think that the Engineering department would be able to fix its own damn lifts, but—)

I made my way across campus in a haze. My feet knew where to go, even if my brain was fixated on other things, like my quiz grade. A year ago, I would've fainted if I had gotten a grade that low, but now, all I felt was a dull sense of disappointment. I was having a hard time making myself care much more than that. Even the threat of failing the course—which would be a first for me—and having my Master's degree slip through my fingers for a year didn't seem so very dire.

Amazing what almost dying a few times will do for your sense of priorities...

Ten minutes later, I reached my car. Did the obligatory check of the back seat, then joined the mid-afternoon bumper-to-bumper traffic on the main road leading out of the campus. By the time I pulled into the parking lot outside my apartment—my _real_ apartment, not one belonging to any of my aliases—it was well into the evening. I made my way up the front walk, past shaggy hedges and limp petunias, and felt around in my purse for my keys. That's when I heard it: a voice. From inside my apartment.

Where I lived_. Alone._

My heart thudded into overdrive and fear trickled down my limbs. Without taking my eyes off the door, I reached down into my purse and pulled out my pistol. The voices continued, but there was a tinny quality to them, and there was music, too. It sounded like the television had been left on, but I hadn't had time to turn it on that morning. Which meant that someone had gone into the apartment and turned on my television—and might even have still been in there.

If only I had left the window shades open...but I hadn't anticipated needing to peek inside _my own apartment_.

I glanced over my shoulder, making sure none of my neighbors were watching. Then, holding the gun in one hand, I jammed the key into the lock, twisted it, and flung the door open, cupping my gun with both hands and bringing it up before me. My pulse pounded in my ears and my eyes swept the living room for threats.

"Hi," said the woman.

It took me a few seconds to recognize the brown-haired intruder, who was sitting cross-legged on the mottled maroon couch before the television. Her feet were tucked in tight beneath her legs. She wore a black tank top, gray sweat pants, and white socks. She looked unimpressed at the sight of the pistol in my hands.

"The hell, Shaw?" I said. I lowered the gun, yanked the key from the lock, and kicked the door shut behind me. "Make yourself at home, why don't you?"

"Thanks," she said. "I did."

I stared, incredulous. "Are you eating my ice cream?"

"What does it look like I'm eating?" Shaw held up the striped cardboard carton in her hands and motioned to its contents with a spoon. "You buy the good stuff. Not that cheap fake crap John likes. The cookies are pretty good, too—"

"You ate my _cookies_?"

"No, I just licked them all." The expression on her face stayed constant: flat, lazy, _bored_. "Ha-ha. Kidding. I had four. Where did you buy them? They're really good."

"I _baked_ them," I said.

Finally, a change: raised eyebrows, a quirk of the lips. Shaw's face suddenly looked feral. "You bake?"

"Uh, yeah. I make a few batches of cookies every weekend. Look, Shaw, what on Earth are you doing in my apartment? Eating _my_ ice cream?"

While I sputtered, Shaw dug around in the carton with the spoon and scooped out a glob of ice cream. She raised the spoon to her mouth, opened wide, and slid the spoon in. Then closed her lips and slowly drew the spoon back out, as if to say, _this ice cream is _really_ good, and I didn't leave you any_.

She did it a second time, then took her time about licking the spoon to a shine. I put the gun back in my purse and put my hand on my hip.

"Been a long day," Shaw said, idly twirling the spoon. "Got shot at. Blew up a few cars with John. The usual." She unfolded her legs, stretched them out in front of her, and quite deliberately put her stockinged feet up on the coffee table, crossing one ankle over the other. "So I wanted to unwind."

"By eating ice cream. _My_ ice cream."

A tiny shrug. "I got hungry waiting for you."

I blinked. It was only then that I realized that I hadn't even moved from the entryway. I balanced on one leg at a time, reaching down and unbuckling my shoes by feel—because Shaw, like a damn panther, always managed to give off the impression that breaking eye contact would result in very bad things. I mean, I knew she wasn't a threat—John trusted her, which meant that I trusted her too, or at least tried to trust her—but that didn't mean I was comfortable letting her out of my sight for very long.

"Why were you waiting for me?"

"Because I'm bored," Shaw said, as if that answer cleared everything right up.

"Uh-huh. Look, I hate to break it to you, but it's been a long day for me too." The desire for a cup of tea battled with the urge to not let Shaw out of my sight. I compromised by edging towards the kitchen, keeping my eyes on the couch's occupant at all times. "I just wanna relax."

"Oh," she said, sounding disappointed. Or maybe not—it was hard to tell with her. Either way, for the next five minutes, she stayed quiet. I put the kettle on the stove and lit the burner and even dared to look away for a few seconds to dig around for a tea bag. I dropped it in the mug, poured the hot water. And then politeness took over, and I found myself saying, "You want a cup of tea?"

"Eww, no," Shaw said. "I'm fine with ice cream."

"You're paying for it," I said.

Another shrug. "How do you want your payment?"

"Uh...in money, or replacement ice cream?"

"You have no imagination," Shaw said.

"Whatever," I said. I looked at Shaw, who was sitting right in the middle of the couch, and then I looked over at the kitchen table, with its old wooden chairs, and then I looked back at the couch, which was battered and ugly but _comfy_, and I decided that my butt had been sitting on enough hard surfaces today. So I put my tea on the coffee table and flopped on the couch, trying not to be too obvious about how I was sitting as far away from Shaw as possible.

It wasn't that I didn't _like_ her. It's just that she exuded this energy around her, like a playful cat that at any moment might decide to have a few swings at the hand that was petting it—only instead of claws, this cat had guns and knives and a disturbingly encyclopedic knowledge of improvisational explosives. Not to mention an uncanny knack for knocking me flat on my backside whenever we spared at the gym.

So I sat and sipped my tea and watched whatever Shaw was watching on my television.

"Are you watching _Monk_?" I asked.

"Yep," said Shaw. She tossed the ice cream carton onto the coffee table. The carton was empty. It'd been at _least_ half full the last time I'd checked. I sighed.

Shaw wasn't much one for talking. Or laughing. She just sat and watched, even as I snickered and giggled at the antics on TV. Shaw didn't even smile, except once, and that was when one of the characters pulled out a sniper rifle. A second later, she frowned.

"Rifles don't work like that..." she muttered.

"Now you know how I feel every time they show 'hacking' on TV."

"Hollywood. Who writes these things?"

I shrugged. Shaw went back to watching the show, and didn't speak again except to point out an inaccuracy in the way one of the police officers held her gun. After my second cup of tea, I decided that I really wanted to get on with my evening, so I said, "It's getting late. Do you need a drive home?"

"It's six o'clock," Shaw said. She didn't seem to get the hint.

"Well," I said, "I need to get some programming done, so..."

"Okay," she said.

I stared at her, but she kept her eyes on the television. I contemplated spelling it out for her, then figured that, as long as she stayed as quiet as she was now, I wouldn't be distracted from my projects. So I went into my bedroom, clicked on the lights, and fired up three of the nine desktop computers slumbering around the room. I sat down at my desk before the twin monitors and logged in. Pulled up my projects directory, opened several C files, and began hacking away.

When I went back out into the living room an hour later, Shaw was gone. The empty ice cream carton was in the recycle bin, the spoon was in the kitchen sink, and a ten dollar bill was sitting on the kitchen counter. Other than that, it was like she'd never been there.

Like a goddamn cat. There one moment, gone the next...

#####

The next morning, John Reese arrived at the Library to find Harold Finch down on his hands and knees beneath the computer desk.

"Good morning, Harold," said John. He set a pink cardboard box, still warm and smelling faintly of buttery crust and cherries, on the desk. He grinned. "Did you lose your contact lens?"

"Ha-ha," Finch said drily. His hands were deep within a desktop computer. Its side panel had been removed and was propped up nearby against the desk. In Finch's left hand was a silver rectangular object; he guided it into a frame mounted to the front of the computer, using his right hand to part the wires and ribbon cables that dangled in the way. "Just some minor maintenance."

"Looks more like open-heart surgery," Reese said.

"I assure you, Mr. Reese; installing a hard drive is quite a trivial task."

Reese looked over the mess of computer equipment surrounding his boss. There were five desktop computers, most of which lacked side panels; several boxy NAS devices, and a rack server with its top cover removed. Cables snaked between all the computers and hung down from the edge of the desk like a beard. Usually, the desktops were arranged neatly next to each other beneath the desk, but Finch had pulled them all out.

"Is that the server from Connetrix?" Reese asked.

"Yes," Finch said. "I thought I might make another attempt at deciphering the encrypted hard drive, this time with the assistance of several high-powered research GPUs with several hundred CUDA cores apiece. We never did determine why the Machine passed us Sarim Horstmann's number..."

Finch reached around to the front of the computer and pressed its power button. It lit up. The fans whirled into life, violently at first, then spooled down until they were nearly silent. One of the monitors flashed as the computer went into its POST cycle and then began booting the operating system.

"Excellent," Finch said. Stiffly, he stood. "However, we have another matter to attend to today—we've received two new numbers." Finch motioned to the cracked pane of glass that served as a whiteboard. On it hung two pictures, each adorned by a wreath of post-it notes.

Finch said, "Meet Robert Bartley and Anna Winslow."

Reese studied the photos. In one of them, Robert Bartley posed beneath a coconut tree. The sand was sparkling white beneath his feet and the ocean behind him was vivid teal, almost unnaturally so. Bartley had tucked his sunglasses on top of his bald, squarish head and he waved to the camera with an awkward grin. He wore colorful shorts and an exceptionally awful Hawaiian shirt. Reese estimated him to be about six foot, maybe six foot two; a hundred and ninety ponds. Caucasian; well-muscled legs. Attractive by most peoples' standards.

And quite possibly someone about to commit a violent crime.

Reese turned his attention to the other photo. Anna Winslow stood in an entryway to an apartment building, one leather boot up against the weather-worn bricks. Her arms were crossed and she was smirking at the photographer. She was short—five foot two, maybe—and she had dark brown skin, like rich chocolate. A fine leather jacket protected her from what seemed to be the autumn chill, judging by the fallen leaves on the sidewalk in the foreground.

"What do we know about them?" Reese asked.

"Mister Bartley is a freelance writer—not a particularly eloquent one—and Miss Winslow owns a small import/export company. Neither have any offenses on record, unless you count Mister Bartley's distastefully vivid outfit."

Reese said, "Not everyone can dress as well as you, Harold."

Finch gave Reese an undefinable look, then continued: "Their finances are stable. Mister Bartley has a brother in California and Miss Winslow has no family to speak of. Bartley lives in a Manhattan townhouse and Winslow lives in an uptown apartment. I haven't found a link between them yet, but I assume there is some undiscovered connection—the Machine gave us their numbers simultaneously."

Reese nodded and considered the photos. "Where should we start?"

"Dibs on the grumpy guy," Shaw said. Finch jumped ever so slightly at her sudden appearance. Reese merely smiled.

"Looks like I'll be following Anna..." Reese said.

He got his first look at Anna Winslow an hour later. Thirty feet away from where Reese sat in his Buick, Anna descended the steps of her apartment building, unlocking the gate at the bottom. She looked almost exactly as she had in the photograph he had seen earlier this morning; there was the leather jacket, the black boots, the jeans and the striped gray scarf. A small maroon handbag hung from her shoulder. She closed the gate behind her and walked down the sidewalk, her boots clicking on the concrete with each step.

Giving her a few second's head start, Reese stepped out of his car and followed, taking care to keep his distance. As he walked, he reached up and tapped his ear twice, instructing his Bluetooth headset to call the second number on speed dial.

"She's on the move," Reese said. "Wait a few minutes, then go in."

At the other end of the line, somebody scuffed.

"I'm already in," said Detective Carter. "Your girl's place is a mess."

John smiled. "I'm glad that you're taking the initiative in your descent into deviancy, Joss."

"What's a little B&E among friends? I mean, compared to lying to a federal agent and tampering with evidence to get your ass out of jail..."

"Thanks again for that," John said lightly. A crackling sigh echoed over the line.

Reese followed Anna down the crowded sidewalk until she headed down into a subway station. He barely made it into the tram before the doors snicked shut behind him. He sat down at the opposite end of the crowded car from Anna, whose attention was fixed on a smartphone.

Naturally, it was bluejacked within seconds.

"Hey," Carter's voice crackled in his ears. "I got a laptop here. It wants a password. Maybe Finch can take a look at it?"

A moment later, Finch's voice crackled into existence.

"I'm afraid I'm a little busy researching our cases at the moment, Detective," he said. "But I know someone who may be able to help..."

#####


	4. Chapter 4

_Note: Happy Holidays!_

_Flashback..._

#####

**February 2012**

The first time John taught me how to use a bobby pin to pick a lock, we broke into a custodial closet at the gym. It was all his idea, of course. Not that I was complaining. It was more fun that getting knocked on my butt.

"Oww," I groaned. I'd had enough of falling today, thanks. I was fine with staying down here where I was, flat on my back, staring upwards from the gym mat. One of the lights recessed in the gym ceiling was burned out. I wondered if anyone else had noticed yet.

John offered his hand. Irritated, I brushed it away and levered myself up off the mat.

"Not bad," he said. "You almost had me."

"That's what you said _last_ time," I panted.

"You almost had me last time, too."

"Right."

"Let's take a breather," John said. He tilted his head towards one of the soft benches set against the wall, and I followed him. For awhile, I felt the smooth exercise mat beneath my feet, then thin carpet. I sat down next to John and crossed my feet at the ankle.

Suddenly, John got this disturbingly mischievous expression on his face, like he'd just thought of a really inappropriate joke, the kind that would've had Mama snickering. John leaned towards me. Instinct told me to scoot away to protect my personal space—but I didn't, because this wasn't some random guy on the bus, or a moron on the sidewalk, this was _John, _and how often did he get that close to me? Especially when his upper body was clad in nothing but a thin, black T-shirt?

"Ellie," he said, "you have something behind your ear."

I scowled and put my hand up to feel. "I do _not_."

He reached behind my head, and when his hand came back, he held a black bobby pin between his fingers.

"Nice," I said. "So you're part ninja _and_ part magician, 'cause I don't wear those."

"You should."

I crossed my arms. "Oh? Why? You tryin' to say something about my hair?"

"No. But these make good emergency lockpicks." He bent the pin apart. "Better than a paperclip."

"Okay, Michael Weston. Now tell me how to rig a car to explode with a potted plant, a half-eaten yogurt, and a washing machine motor."

"Weston is alright," John said. "At least he knows his explosives."

"He's fictional."

"Details. Anyway...you see that door over there?" He nodded across the room to a completely innocent-looking wooden door with an industrial-grade silver doorknob. I knew what was going to happen next. John wasn't the kind of person to point out random doors unless they were going to get a good old-fashioned hardware hack in the near future.

Sure enough, a minute later, John was showing me how to pick the door's lock...with a hairpin.

As I worked at the lock with the makeshift pick, John said, "Now, I'm not saying your hair needs work or anything..."

"Good," I said, sticking my tongue out in concentration. "'Cause if you were, it'd be reason number four hundred eighty-six for me to kick your ass one of these days."

"...but you should really carry some of these with you. Preferably, in your hair. You never know when you'll need to pick a lock."

"To date, the only doors I've hacked have been _your_ doors."

"Oh, this one isn't mine," John said, rapping lightly on the door frame. He peered back over his shoulder—the third time he'd done so.

I paused. "Don't tell me you didn't ask the gym first."

"Relax, Ellie. It's just a custodial closet..."

I rolled my eyes and kept working at the door. A few minutes later, my patience paid off—the lock clicked and turned. As promised, the door led to a room filled with cleaning supplies. Not the most rewarding payoff, and I said so.

"Just think," I said. "Now I can have a lifetime supply of bleach and air fresheners for free. Yep. Crime sure does pay."

"Cleaning supplies can be valuable," John said, somehow managing to give the sentence just enough of a mysterious touch to make me not want to ask for any details. "Now, let's try that door over there."

"You mean the one that says 'staff only'?"

"No, the one next to it."

"Oh, you mean the invisible door that doesn't exist."

"Yes."

I shut the custodial room door behind me and tapped my bare foot against the carpet, glancing up at John. "I dunno," I said. "The sign is there for a reason."

"Think of the sign as a_...guideline."_ He held out another bobby pin, one that hadn't been bent out of shape yet. I chewed my inner lip and wondered if this was such a good idea. I mean, breaking into a custodial closet was one thing. Breaking into a staff area?

But then again...it was just a little ol' door...it wasn't like I was breaking into a _bank_ or anything.

I grabbed the pin from John's hand, bent it like he'd shown me, and set off towards the door. John leaned against the door frame as I worked, shielding me from view of the hallway that led to the front desk. I could feel the amusement radiating off him, or maybe it was just the heat from his body...

#####

The next time we used bobby pins, it wasn't on a door lock.

As soon as I arrived at the gym, I could tell that something different was going to happen today. Maybe the little black nylon bag tucked beneath one of the benches at the periphery of the exercise room was a clue; maybe John was acting a little odd. Maybe it was that John himself led me back into the gym instead of the usual twiggish man at the front desk—the valet was nowhere to be seen.

Months ago, I wouldn't have even noticed that, but now, with John teaching me how to _use_ the eyes and ears I'd been given, it struck me as strange.

"Where's Alfred Pennyworth?" I whispered as we entered the exercise room.

"Talking with Commissioner Gordon," John said.

I rolled my eyes and headed back to the changing rooms. I emerged several minutes later dressed in a tank top and a pair of gray cotton shorts. When I got out to the mat, John and I took our time warming up and then started sparring. By now I was _really_ sure that something different was going to happen, because it felt like John was going easy on me. I mean, not enough to where I could get him down on the mat (I was still eagerly awaiting that day), but enough to where I could hold my own against him.

We sparred for maybe twenty minutes, then John suggested a break.

"Come on, we were just getting started!" I said.

"Are you relaxed?" John asked.

"Uh—yeah, I guess."

"Good. I have an idea—but you don't have to do it if you're not comfortable with it."

"Do what?" I asked him, perplexed. I followed him off the mat and over to the bench, the one with the bag under it. John sat down and picked up the bag. He set it on his lap but didn't open it.

"So what's the 'idea' that requires me to be relaxed and comfortable?" I asked. I narrowed my eyes and said, "If it involves turning out the lights, forget it."

"Not quite that, but right idea," John said gently. He tilted his head and said, "How much harder do you think it is to pick the locks on a pair of handcuffs than a typical door lock?"

It took me a second to process what he had just said. As soon as I figured it out, I felt a funny feeling seep into my stomach: the same nauseous trembles I got whenever I stepped near a darkened doorway, or saw a cargo container (especially a red one), or even _thought_ about having my blood drawn.

"I—I don't know?" I said, swallowing. "Harder?"

"Actually, easier, if you know how to do it," John said.

"I...uh..." I wasn't sure what to say, but I was pretty sure of what was in the little black nylon bag now. Memories flashed before my eyes: waking up to find my wrists cuffed together; Tara grinning wickedly as she squeezed the garden shears with my pinky finger pinched between the blades; darkness, then the rumble of the car engine; Tara's harsh voice reverberating from the walls of the cargo container; the light of the headlights glinting off the steel cuffs that bound my wrists to the wall; the numbness in my hands as I struggled in the darkness; John throwing the cargo container doors wide and picking the lock on one of the cuffs in _seconds; _the caked blood on my wrists as John tenderly removed the other cuff once he had carried me out to the car; the breeze from the air conditioning drifting over my naked, overheated body...

I looked down and rubbed my wrists. The wounds had healed well. The doctor had promised that they wouldn't scar, but sometimes, if I looked real closely, I saw—or imagined—the faint outlines where the cold metal had bitten into my skin...

"I can teach you how to pick handcuffs locks if you want," John said gently. "But I understand if you don't want to right now." When I didn't respond right away, he added, "It might come in handy someday..."

I gulped and said, "What did you have in mind?"

"Well," John said, and he reached out behind my ear and pulled out a bobby pin. "We'll start with this. Most of the time, you wouldn't have a real lockpick to work with. So you should carry your own. It's easier than trying to find one while cuffed." He showed me how to bend it into the right shape, and he handed it to me. Then he unzipped the bag and pulled out a pair of handcuffs.

Curiosity overcame the urge to cringe away. I made myself look. Nausea bubbled in my gut. Yep, those were handcuffs all right; metal and rivets and pure intimidation linked together by a short silver chain. The cuffs looked disturbingly robust.

John opened and closed one of the cuffs using a key, showing me how the double-ratchet system worked. Then he plucked the lock pick from my fingers, stuck it in one of the key holes, worked it from side to side, and several seconds later, the cuff fell open. He described how the lock worked, and then he reached into the nylon bag again and pulled out a piece of paper with a cutaway illustration of the lock mechanism. He pointed out various components of the latch on the drawing.

"It's easy, once you get the hang of it," John said softly. "Watch again."

He had the other cuff open in thirty seconds, which was probably a snail's pace for him. But it was still slow enough for me to figure out what he was doing.

Sorta.

He locked both cuffs again, then picked one of the locks a third time. Locked the cuff again and set the cuffs on the bench between us.

And then he handed me the lock pick.

I hesitated, then, slowly, I reached out and took it from his fingers. I gulped. My fingers brushed against the surface of the cuffs. They were icy cold. I didn't like touching them, even though the logical portion of my mind knew there was nothing to be afraid of—what were they going to do? Jump up and lock themselves around my wrists? John had the _key_. There was nothing to be afraid of. I could do this.

With shaking fingers, I picked up the cuffs, worked the pick into one of the keyholes, and spent the next few minutes battling the urge to vomit.

It took awhile to figure out the right motions necessary to unlatch the ratchet. As usual, John had made it look _way_ easier than it was. I had to feel around with the pick to find where the latch was. John stayed quiet, for the most part; he only offered a few words of advice.

After a few minutes, I heard a _click_, and the cuff loosened.

"Very nice," John said.

"Let me try the other side," I said tentatively.

I managed to get the other cuff unlocked a minute or two sooner, but it was still an eternity of fumbling and scratching and picking compared to John's well-practiced movements.

John said, "Now you're probably wondering how to pick the cuffs if you're wearing them." I wasn't, not really—I was thinking about other things, like what it was like to be trapped in a roasting cargo container and how I wished Tara could've endured the same torment—but I stayed quiet. "It's not too different," John said. "It depends on which way the keyholes are facing." As he spoke, he casually unlocked one of the cuffs, slipped it around his wrist, and ratcheted it closed with the key. "Now, it's a lot easier if the keyholes are facing out, but with these types of cuffs, it's not much more difficult to pick the locks even if they're facing the other way." He unlocked the other cuff with the key and soon it was ratcheted around his wrist as well. He wasn't even looking down—he was looking at me. He held up his hands—now cuffed—and rattled the cuffs once, then motioned for the lock pick.

I handed it to him and watched, simultaneously fascinated and disturbed, as he stuck it into one of the keyholes and felt around for the latch. Several seconds later, the cuff fell open.

Just like that.

"A paperclip works okay too," John said. "Really, almost anything thin and sturdy will do. Do you know what handcuffs are for?"

"Uh, yeah," I said. "To keep somebody restrained when the police arrests them."

"Exactly—they're _temporary_ restraints. Not a replacement for prison bars and locked doors and watchful guards. Handcuffs aren't meant to be inescapable—they're just meant to last long enough to get the bad guy to the station." He locked the cuff around his wrist again, then started picking the cuff on the opposite wrist. "When the police use handcuffs, the cuffs are always accompanied by a watchful officer. A skilled prisoner can easily slip the cuffs in dozens of ways, from lockpicking to dislocating their thumb. If they can find something to jimmy the lock, plus a little privacy for a few seconds..."

On cue, the cuff fell open.

"...they're much easier to slip than people think."

"Oh," I said.

"Now, some of the bad guys I've met know this. Most don't. In fact, most of 'em leave you alone and don't bother to watch you too closely, figuring that the cuffs will keep you subdued."

"And how's that work out for them?"

"Not too well," John said. "The ones that don't know how easy it is to escape from cuffs usually end up cuffed themselves. Somewhat poetic." John smirked, but a moment later, it faded from his face. Concern showed in his eyes. He held up the cuffs and said, "Do you want to try?"

Fear bolted down my spine. I stared at the cuffs.

"I have the key," John said. "Two of them, actually. But I understand if you don't want to do this."

"I...I'll..." I wasn't sure what I was trying to say. I was having a hard time breathing. But the logical part of my brain was whispering in my ear, saying things like _if you meet another Tara in the future, you'll be better prepared,_ and _this might save your life,_ and _stop worrying, John has the key, it'll be fine,_ and all these other things that somehow didn't reassure me very much.

"All right," I whispered. I held out my wrists. My arms were trembling. Gently, John held my left hand and picked up the cuffs. I winced when the metal touched my skin. The sound of the ratchet was very loud in the silence between us.

"Maybe try just one first," John said as I fought down nausea. The cuffs dangled from my wrist. I stared at it like it was some kind of parasite that had attached itself to me. John put the bobby pin in my free hand. Taking a deep breath to calm myself—or at least, to _try_ and calm myself—I stuck it in the lock. At first, my fingers shook too much for me to feel for the latch. It took a minute or so to regain my dexterity, and then a small eternity to get the cuff open. I exhaled shakily once my wrist was finally free.

"Not bad at all," John said. "Speed comes with practice. But I've seen many foolish guards leave prisoners alone for at least that long."

"So, I should hope for inept captors," I said. Damnit, even my _voice_ was trembling.

"That always helps," John said. He held up the cuffs again. "Do you want to try both wrists, or stop now and get back to trying to kick my ass?"

"I...sure, I guess," I said. I took a deep breath and held out my wrists again.

Having one wrist cuffed wasn't too bad. I could take that. There was something strange about the way John ever-so-carefully closed the ratchet around my wrist, something almost erotic about the cold steel and his warm hands. But that feeling was quickly driven away when the cuffs were closed around my other wrist. I stared at my hands in horror. I could barely breathe; it felt like someone was squeezing my chest. John handed me the pick. I had to focus hard on getting it into the keyhole, and it took several tries. My fingers wouldn't obey me. I tried turning the pick, but it slipped from my fingers and fell to the carpet beneath the bench.

"I'll get it," John said. He bent down and felt around for the pick. I was too terrified to speak. John seemed to be taking an impossibly long time to find the pick, and breathing was getting harder and harder, and it sounded like there was a freight train roaring in my ears—and then I heard Tara's voice, whispering poisonous things about how she wanted me to suffer, and I just couldn't take it any longer.

"J-J-John," I stuttered, feeling very sick, "take t-them off, p-please. I can't do this."

I didn't have to ask twice. Before I had even finished speaking, John had the key in his hand, and a moment later, the cuffs fell to the bench. I looked away.

"S-sorry," I said, rubbing my wrists. "I just—"

"It's all right," John said, patting my shoulder. "You did good." He snagged the cuffs with his fingers and dropped them into the nylon case. The keys followed, and a moment later, the case was zippered shut. He tucked it under the bench again. I sat very still until John gave me one of his _looks_ and said, "You still in the mood to kick my ass?"

"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, sure. Just—give me a minute."

"Okay," he said.

I felt better when we got back on the mat, even though John had me on the ground in minutes. But later that night, I found myself lying awake in bed while the scene at the gym played itself over and over again before my eyes. I didn't fall asleep until three AM.

When I dressed the next morning, I put a few bobby pins in my hair. Just in case...

#####


	5. Chapter 5

_Note: Thanks to SWWoman for beta'ing this and for thoughtful suggestions!_

_When you have a character who's narrated most of the story in 1st person POV, having a different character describe the narrator feels a little bit like an out-of-body experience._

_UPDATE: I deleted/restored this chapter. FF is behaving very oddly. I sent an email to their support team/person/puppet._

**April 2012**

#####

Jocelyn Carter pulled her car into a parking space, turned off the engine, and yanked the keys from the ignition. She looked at the numbers affixed to the side of each building in the little apartment complex until she spotted the right address.

Pinching the bridge of her nose, she sighed.

_You really want to get this girl involved_? Carter thought to herself. _She's nearly gotten herself killed _twice_ now working with John. Now you're just enabling her_. That thought was followed by_, well, if I don't, _he_ will_._ And maybe you can talk a little sense into her while you're there._

Pushing the car door open, Carter stepped out into the cool afternoon, toting the laptop beneath her arm. She walked up the cement sidewalk, past a line of shrubs and bushes planted against the wall of the gray building, and reached a dark green door with the brass numerals _14 _set dead center. She knocked twice.

"Just a minute!" someone called faintly from inside the apartment. A few moments later, the lock scrabbled and the door opened several inches. A curious freckled face peered through the gap.

Carter said, "Remember me, Elizabeth? Detective Carter."

"Oh!" said Elizabeth Ruben. Her face brightened. She grinned and swung the door wide. "How are you?"

"Fine, thanks," said Carter. She showed Elizabeth the laptop. "I was hoping you'd have a minute to look at this thing. It's for a case."

"Sure! Come in." Elizabeth Ruben stepped back and motioned inside. She was wearing a long satin nightgown and her curly brown hair was unkempt. There were faint circles under her eyes. Carter noted with some amusement that Elizabeth's gown was almost the exact hue of green as the front door.

The last time Carter had seen Elizabeth, the young programmer—working undercover as Robin McCartney—had just been attacked and nearly killed in an office server room. The time before that, she had been rescued only hours prior from a horrifying death by heat stroke, bound and left to die in a cargo container. She had seemed so fragile then; withdrawn, in shock, clinging to anyone within arm's reach. Now she seemed happy and at ease—surprisingly so for someone who had narrowly escaped Death's claws twice in a year...

Carter wondered if the circles beneath Elizabeth's eyes were from more than just fatigue.

"Hope I'm not interrupting anything," Carter said as she stepped into the apartment.

"No, I was just programming," Elizabeth said. She swept towards the kitchen. The hem of her gown twirled around her bare feet and her hair bounced when she looked over her shoulder at Carter. "Want some tea?"

"Uh, no thanks," Carter said. She looked around, taking in the simple, sparse decorations in the living room and kitchen, the photographs on the walls. There were a few dusty paperweights on the coffee table. A round red cookie tin sat on the kitchen counter, its lid ajar, and dishes were stacked in the sink. "Nice place. Cozy."

"Thanks. So what's with the laptop? You forget your password?"

Carter set the laptop on the kitchen table. "I'm kinda borrowing it."

"Ah, you're pulling a Rooney."

"A what?"

"You know, a Rooney?" When Carter raised her eyebrows, Elizabeth said, "That's whenever 'John Rooney' gets all audacious and breaks into peoples' apartments and 'borrows' their things and—never mind." She sat down at the table, balancing a cup of tea on a saucer, and she reached for the laptop. "Can I see?"

"All yours. I gotta get it back in a few hours though."

"I'll clone the drive then," Elizabeth said. Her fingers stroked the keyboard. "But first, let's see what we're dealing with..." She stuck out her tongue in concentration as the laptop booted. Carter watched over her shoulder as the operating system logo flashed on screen. The login prompt appeared.

"Oh, good," Elizabeth said.

"'Good'? It's asking you for a password."

"Well, yeah, but it looks like it's just an OS password. Just a sec."

She stood and padded across the living room, disappearing through an open doorway. Carter heard the sounds of rustling. A moment later, Elizabeth reappeared with a flash drive and a sleek black external hard drive clutched in her hands.

She grinned and said, "Betcha I can get at the files in less than five minutes."

Carter raised her eyebrows as Elizabeth seated herself before the laptop again.

"No bet," Carter said. "I know better than to put money against you geeky types."

"You're no fun," Elizabeth said. She plugged the flash drive into a USB port on the side of the laptop. She tapped a button on the keyboard as it booted and the laptop displayed a new, unfamiliar logo. It disappeared a moment later and lines of text began scrolling down the screen, white on black.

"It'll take a bit to boot," Elizabeth said. The text disappeared, to be replaced by a simple blue progress bar crawling from left to right across an otherwise blank screen. The laptop's fan whispered and the hard drive grumbled. Carter glanced at Elizabeth as the laptop did whatever it was that it was doing.

There were definitely circles under the young programmer's eyes.

"You look tired," Carter said.

"Huh?" said Elizabeth. "Oh, yeah." She waved her hand dismissively over the keyboard. "Haven't been sleeping well lately."

The progress bar continued to grow towards the right edge of the screen, but Carter paid little attention.

"Nightmares?" she guessed.

Elizabeth looked surprised. She hesitated, then shrugged, but didn't look away from the laptop.

"Kinda," she said. Her fingers idly tapped the keys. "How'd you know?"

"Lucky guess."

Elizabeth chuckled. "You're psychic like Mama. But...yeah. It's been a rough few weeks."

"You wanna talk about it?"

"Not really," Elizabeth said. The progress bar on the laptop screen faded out, to be replaced by another login prompt. Elizabeth's fingers flew over the keyboard and tapped the _enter_ key. A plain blue desktop appeared on the screen.

"Awesome," Elizabeth said. "Let's see..."

The next five minutes was filled with file browsers and terminal windows. Carter had no idea what Elizabeth was doing, even after Elizabeth tried to explain it.

"The operating system on the laptop won't let us log in," Elizabeth said as she typed a long command into a terminal window. "So if we boot a second operating system that can grok the native file system, we can access the files directly if they're not encrypted. We just have to mount the partition and—hah! See?"

"Way over my head, hun," said Carter.

"Let's poke around and see if we can find some emails or something," said Elizabeth. She took a sip of tea and opened yet more terminal windows.

Carter wondered if Elizabeth _really_ needed all of those command prompts.

"Hmmm..." Elizabeth chewed the inside of her lip. "I see a shortcut to Thundermail...but where is it pointing?"

"It says it's on D drive," Carter said, squinting at the screen. "You can get to that, right?"

"Yeah, but we're in Linux right now—D is going to be something like 'dev sda3'. I...don't see it in the mount list. Lemme open up parted..."

She typed a few commands. Her fingers faltered.

"Awwww, crap," Elizabeth groaned. She leaned back in her chair and exhaled. "It's an encrypted partition."

"Can you get in?" Carter asked.

"I doubt it. I mean, I'll try, but I don't think so." She sighed. "I'll clone the disk so you can give the laptop back."

"Thanks. I really appreciate this, by the way. Usually, I got a guy who does things like this, but he's busy."

"No problem," Elizabeth said. "I needed a break. Tracking down segfaults in a C program is a pain, you know?"

"I'll take your word for it."

Elizabeth hooked up the external hard drive and started the cloning application running. An ETA of 10 minutes appeared in a status window.

"Small drive," Elizabeth commented. "I'll copy it to one of my machines too, see if I can get anywhere with a wordlist. But if the owner has a long passphrase..."

"It's all right," said Carter. "We may not even need it."

"Meh," Elizabeth said. "So what's the story? Whose laptop is this, anyway? I'm gonna guess it's not an _official_ case, since you 'borrowed' it..."

"It belongs to a girl named Anna Winslow. John's tailing her around New York right now."

"What'd she do?"

"Dunno. As usual. But we'll find out soon enough."

Conversation languished. For a while, the loudest sound in the room was the laptop's fan and the rumble of Elizabeth's refrigerator. The cloning application displayed its progress every few seconds and the completion percentage crept upward.

"You sure you don't want some tea?" Elizabeth said. "I'd offer coffee, but...I don't have any."

"I'm good, thanks," Carter said.

Silence. Elizabeth watched the screen, her eyes glassy. She fidgeted often, Carter noticed; Elizabeth shuffled her legs, tapped her feet, and ran her fingers absentmindedly through her hair.

"Hey," Elizabeth asked after some time. "You ever wonder how John's Bat Signal works?"

Carter had to think about the question for a moment before she realized what Elizabeth was asking. "You mean how he knows somebody's about to get themselves in trouble?"

"Yeah," Elizabeth said. "I mean, I've asked him. And I kinda got this 'we'd have to kill you if we told you' vibe, or maybe 'someone else would try to kill you if you knew'. I mean, it's _weird, _you know? He says so-and-so is gonna be in trouble soon, or maybe they're going to murder someone, and then a day or two later it turns into Burn Notice. _Every_ time. Sometimes they get it backwards—Mary Jane isn't in danger from her crazy abusive boyfriend, but maybe she's actually planning to kill him. But something _always_ happens."

Carter nodded absently. "Sounds about right. I don't know for sure. I got a few ideas, but..." She exhaled and shook her head. "I gave up trying to ask about it."

Elizabeth grinned and said, "If I was a little less skeptical, I'd say one of the Justice League was psychic."

"Huh. Hadn't thought of that one. But I've seen so many bullshit 'psychics' in my time as a homicide detective..."

"Yeah. I dunno. Just curious." She yawned, covering her mouth. "Sorry," she mumbled.

Carter glanced sidelong at Elizabeth, whose attention was once again focused on the laptop. "You get nightmares often?" Carter asked.

"Kinda. It's fine, really, it is. They just get worse some nights, but it's a small price to pay for being alive."

"That doesn't mean you have to just put up with them," Carter said gently. "If they're a problem—"

"They're not," Elizabeth said.

"Well, if they ever _do_ become a problem, and you need to talk about them—or anything else— you can always call me. You know that, right? 'S why I gave you my card."

"I know, I know," Elizabeth said. "It's in my desk drawer."

"Okay," Carter said.

More silence. The progress percentage slowly increased. Elizabeth tapped her foot against the chair leg.

_Well_, Carter thought, _let's see if I have more luck than John—assuming he even tried to talk her out of his shenanigans after things went to hell at Connetrix._

"Do you feel like you owe him?" Carter asked gently.

Elizabeth tilted her head and looked at Carter, but for several seconds, she didn't say anything. Her expression was equal parts annoyance and amusement, with maybe a tiny bit of uncertainty mixed in.

"Well...yeah," she said, balancing her chin on her hands and contemplating the laptop in front of her. "I mean, he saved my life. That's kinda a big deal."

"It is," Carter agreed. "But that doesn't mean you owe him a—what do they call it in Star Trek? A Wookie life debt?"

"Star _Wars,"_ Elizabeth mumbled. "It's Star _Wars._ There aren't any Wookies in Star Trek."

"Right. I'm just saying. It's natural to feel grateful to the person who saved your life. Not saying you should feel differently. But John doesn't expect you to owe him anything. You're smart, Elizabeth, and you've got a rich life ahead of you. But if you keep getting tangled up in these cases—there's no nice way to say it: you're gonna end up dead."

"Meh," Elizabeth said. "Did John ask you to try and talk me out of helping again? 'Cause I'm not changing my mind. Yeah, I owe him—but that's not why I wanna help. I just wanna give other people the same chance I got, y'know? And I like what we do. It's kinda secret-agent-ey, but for a good cause. Like Burn Notice meets Batman meets Robin Hood. Except John doesn't wear tights or a cape."

_That would make a great photograph_, Carter thought, but she kept it to herself. She said, "There's nothing I can say that will make you reconsider, huh?"

"Absolutely nothing," Elizabeth said. She smiled weakly. She motioned to the laptop screen and said, "The clone's almost finished. The second copy will go way faster—this laptop's USB port is pretty slow."

When the disk clone was finally done, Elizabeth disappeared into the back of the apartment again and came out a few moments later with a second external hard drive and a tiny netbook. She connected both drives to the netbook and used it to copy the disk image over to the new drive. As promised, it took much less time than it had with Anna's laptop. When Elizabeth was done, she disconnected one of the drives and handed it to Carter.

"You can hang on to the drive for awhile," she said. "I'm gonna try to crack my copy of the partition, but I don't think it'll get very far. Your tech might be able to do better..."

"We'll see," Carter said. "Thanks again, Elizabeth. And remember—you've got my card. Anything—_anything_ you need to talk about, I'm a ring away."

"I know," Elizabeth said. Carter collected Anna's laptop and tucked it under her arm.

"And, by the way," she said. "Hanging around John makes you forget, but privacy is still a thing. If you're worried about too many ears, you can always come by the precinct and we can chat, just the two of us. Nobody else needs to hear about it. Just, uh, leave your cell phone at the door."

Elizabeth laughed and shook her head. She said, "You're just like Mama, you know that? But, really—I appreciate it. I just—there's nothing to talk about. I'm fine."

"All right..." Carter said.

_Well_, she thought to herself as she stepped outside, _I tried_.

#####

My burner phone rang while I fixed myself another cup of tea, less than five minutes after Carter left my apartment. I ran back to the bedroom, snagged the phone off the nightstand, and held it to my ear.

"Good afternoon, Ellie," came John's voice.

"You owe me a cookie," I said.

"Why, did Shaw stop by today?"

I laughed and paced my bedroom. "I meant for looking at the laptop, silly. I'm gonna try to crack the password with a wordlist, but I don't think I can get in unless Anna Whoever has a really lousy password, like 'password'."

"It's possible," John said. "She's not very, ah, security-conscious. I'm watching her right now."

"What's she doing?" I went back out to the kitchen, scooped up the netbook and external hard drive with one hand, and carried them back to the bedroom. I set the netbook on my desk next to my keyboard and plugged the tiny laptop into its equally tiny power supply. Then I went back out to fetch my tea and finally settled in at my desk.

"Not much. She's about to go into a business meeting with a potential new client."

"What's she do for a living?" I set the cell phone on my desk and put it on speakerphone so I could have both hands free to type.

"Import-export business," John said.

"You know, on Burn Notice, that almost always means 'smuggler'."

"You'd be surprised at how legitimate—and lucrative—the business can be," John said. I watched the little netbook run through its boot cycle until its login prompt popped into view, then entered my credentials. John said, "But you're right; businesses like that make a good front. Either way, it takes a certain type to pull it off. Anna looks like she's it—charismatic, likeable, shrewd, good with numbers."

"So what makes you think somebody's about to off her?"

"The usual signs," John said mysteriously.

"Uh-huh. Anything I can do to help?"

"Try to get into that partition, but no worries if you can't—Finch might have better luck when he gets back."

"Oh?" I grinned. "When Finch gets back from _where?"_

John didn't respond for a few seconds.

"From wherever he is," he said lightly. I rolled my eyes.

"Anna's on the move," John said suddenly. "I gotta go. We'll talk later—and I'll bring cookies."

"Make sure Shaw doesn't eat them," I said. I heard a chuckle, and then the line went dead. I glared at the phone and snapped it shut.

I spent the next half-hour setting up the attack on the encrypted partition. I decided to use the netbook to try to crack the password—the netbook might've been the smallest computer I owned, but it was also the most powerful, and I _still_ hadn't managed to get it to overheat...yet. After spending a few minutes browsing online, I found that my favorite password-cracking app would work on encrypted partitions with only a few configuration tweaks. I told the cracking application to utilize my largest word list—114 gigabytes of English words in several dialects. The app would first try as many combinations of words as it could from the word list, staying under a certain character limit (I picked the rather arbitrary value of 21), and if none of those worked, it would try brute-forcing the password one character at a time. I left the brute-force settings where they were—minimum password length of one character, max unbounded, use all possible ASCII characters—because I knew that if the wordlist didn't crack the password there was little point in trying to brute-force it for very long. Depending on how complex the password was, it might've taken longer to crack it using brute-force techniques than the universe had left to exist. So I didn't bother optimizing the brute-force settings.

Once everything was configured just so, I set the application running. The little fan in the base of the netbook kicked on immediately, and soon hot air was pouring out of the vent on the side as the cracking application harnessed the computational power of the discrete GPU inside. I spent another five minutes writing a script to shut down the netbook if it got too hot—I didn't _think_ it would overheat, but I wasn't willing to bet on that, and I didn't want to risk frying the GPU by running it hot for a long period of time.

_Admit it_, I thought as I worked. _You're getting attached to Sybil's little gift..._

I finished the script, enabled it, and set the netbook aside, being careful not to jostle the attached hard drive too much. I blanked the screen, too; otherwise, I would've been tempted to check every few minutes to see if it had managed to crack the password.

_You sure that thing won't overheat?_ I thought to myself. _The fan is running awful loud_.

On a whim, I set the netbook on four little post-it note pads, one at each corner, to make sure there was a large enough air gap underneath so the fan could draw air inside. Just to be safe.

_Yep. Totally attached_.

I smirked and turned my attention back to my desktop. Soon I was deep in my debugging groove, and after awhile, I didn't even notice the _whir_ of the netbook's fan.

#####


End file.
